Once a Commissioner
by thundever1
Summary: Xander dresses as Commissioner Gordon on Halloween. What changes takes place when the spell is broken?


**Once a Commissioner.....**

Disclaimer: I do not own any characters from Batman or Buffy the Vampire Slayer, they are owned by Joss Whedon and DC Comics.

Xander Harris looked down at the small shield in his hand. He had been doing this for the past few hours, since he had gotten back from returning all the trick or treaters that he could find to the High School. Looking up to the window as sunlight started to pour through, he shook his head knowing that he was no closer to an answer than he was four hours ago. This was when he had realised that unlike his friends, he could still remember the persona and history of the person he had dressed up as. In his case, that person was none other than Jim Gordon, police commissioner of Gotham and helper of the Batman. The same Gordon who had succeeded in doing the impossible and had brought an end to the corruption controlling the GCPD, although this had caused some problems in his family life.

Xander had chosen to dress as Jim Gordon, because not only did he just have to buy a small plastic shield, as he could find a suit at home, but Gordon was a normal guy who made a difference, while helping a main player in the situation. Hero costumes cost a lot of money and required more confidence then he knew he had in order to wear in public. Jim Gordon was perfect and had been extremely useful when the spell had activated, showing that not only did Gordon not need the Bat-signal to be useful, but that he was also a great detective in his own right. Thus, he had figured out before the spell was broken, where it had come from, and managed to not only prevent Giles from causing bodily harm to Ethan Rayne to break the spell, but prevented Ethan from escaping. Of course before he went to Ethan's Gordon had found all those unchanged members of the public, mainly children that he had come across a safe place to hide until the danger had passed.

Once the spell was broken Xander had known that the right course of action would be to hand Ethan over to the police. Although the teenage side of him pointed out that Sunnydale's police never did anything, the Gordon side pointed out that they would be able to at least see how corrupted and inept Sunnydale PD actually was. He knew from experience that no matter how bad the Gotham and Bludhaven police forces were, not all officers in them were bad people and they needed to know where to start if they could try and help clean up the force from the outside. Xander sighed at this thought, knowing as Gordon did that without the symbol, hope and help that the Batclan, particularly Batman, Nightwing and Robin gave, it would be a long uphill battle. Yet the sense of justice and years of experience in uphill battles that Gordon brought to Xander meant that he knew he could not turn his back from the fight. All that experience also brought the knowledge that at the present time he was ill equipped to meet the ultimate goal he was striving for.

In a moment of brutal honesty, Xander admitted that he had neither the fitness, knowledge nor ability to help clean up Sunnydale PD and get them knowledgeable about the fight on the Hellmouth. All of Gordon's experiences had led him to understand that knowledge learnt oneself was known better as well as better remembered and used by that person. This meant that he would have to learn everything Gordon knew himself, both theoretically and practically. While knowing that this would take years, Xander knew he could lay the groundwork via trustworthy and honest current members of Sunnydale's police. He did not think himself as very clever but realised that hard work, good basics to build on and a series of achievable goals would enable him with Gordon's support via the memories to achieve his goal. And any goal worth achieving is worth long term effort. He smirked as he finished that thought and looked down once again at the shield.

One thing was certain the physical and mental training could be started immediately, the firearm training should only happen when it was legal for him to do so. As such it would only happen if he joined the police force itself. Despite the knowledge that a team can help achieve a goal and his own hopes at finding a contact in a police officer as well as Gordon's memories at how useful the major crimes unit was to him, Xander was not sure he would tell the other's his plans immediately. He figured Giles would either think he should leave it to adults to sort out or that an effective police force might interfere with Buffy's mission. Buffy would agree with the latter and due to the uselessness of normal ammunition in guns, did not see the use. Willow, however, would follow majority opinion due to fear that he might get hurt. Xander would tell them his plans but only when the basics were dealt with.

He looked down at his watch and realised that he would have time for a short run, before he had to get ready for school. Slowly building up the distance and adding different exercises would make him fit enough for his work. Then at school he would pay more attention in class, take better notes, ask for make-up work to improve his understanding and get his grade point average up. Then after school another short run, followed by a trip to the town library to get the books on the subjects he needed to study and of course do his homework. That last thought brought a wry smile to his face. What was also good was that Halloween gave him a brilliant and mostly truthful explanation for any change in behaviour that Giles and the girls noticed, who when not comparing their life to someone who had achieved at least some of his goals would not rearrange their own priorities.

Xander could only hope that he could achieve a fraction of what Gordon achieved in Gotham.

Author's Note: Continue with the storyline or just leave as a one-shot?


End file.
